Herman Cain, speaking at the American Enterprise Institute today, under fire over questions about harassment of female employees. Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

9.00am: The Republican frontrunner, Herman Cain, is being challenged by allegations of "sexually suggestive behaviour" by former staff. Politico, the Washington DC political news site, reports that Cain was at the centre of complaints from at least two female employees during his time as head of the National Restaurants Association.

In response, the Cain campaign described the account as "unsubstantiated personal attacks" and "thinly sourced allegations".

According to the report in Politico, two women signed non-disclosure agreements with the restaurant lobbying group in exchange for accepting substantial financial payouts to leave the association. Neither woman was named by Politico because of what it called "privacy concerns".

The allegations come as Cain has surged into the front ranks of the Republican presidential field despite never having held elected office.

Cain is discussing his bid for the Republican nomination at the American Enterprise Institute today and we will be live blogging the event. It is due to start at 9am ET and last for two hours. A live video stream of the event is at the top of this page.

9.05am: We're waiting for Herman Cain to appear – no sign yet but no sign that he's going to skip the event (or the later events scheduled for today).

The Guardian's Ewen Macaskill is at the AEI's offices on 17th Street, which he describes as "neo-con central":

The AEI does not normally attract such big media scrums. The last time was Dick Cheney in 2009 for his speech defending torture. Cain has not cancelled and hacks are waiting inside and out.

9.15am: Here we go – although there appears to be "technical difficulties" according to CNN.

We start with Cain appearing to be answering a question about which of his Republican opponenets he would appear as. I'm guessing here. Anyway, he says: "Ron Paul."

9.18am: OK so it's Cain answering a tedious question about how his business background running a pizza chain informed his 9-9-9 tax reform.

It's the usual nonsense about how being a businessman is all about "solving problems". So for example, explaining how that works we get lines such as:

... and that helped us eliminate three of the four crusts we were working on.

This makes me think running a pizza chain is not at all like being president of the United States and that the experience gained in downsizing pizza crusts isn't relevent or useful.

9.20am: Now this is interesting: what is Fox News showing right now? Not Herman Cain. Instead it's a clip of a Mitt Romney stump speech. Hmm.

9.23am: Meanwhile, Herman Cain's smokin' hot campaign manager, Mark Block, has been popping up on MSNBC to defend his boss:

Asked about the allegations, Block said:

Herman Cain has never sexually-harassed anybody. Period. End of story.

Block says he asked Cain about allegations and Cain told him: "The story is not true. Bring me some facts. Bring me my accuser."

Asked if Cain had reached a settlement with any former employees during his time with the National Restaurant Association, Block gives a non-denial: "I am not personally aware of any settlement dealing with Mr Cain."

Indeed, Politico claims it has asked him about a settlement involving a named employee, and Cain refused to comment.

9.27am: If you're watching the live feed above here, you'll know that Herman Cain is just talking about his really awful 9-9-9 tax plan.

The more he talks about it, the more obvious it is that he doesn't understand it. He certainly doesn't understand the difference between a value-added tax and a sales tax, as he is making crystal clear. His 9-9-9 plan includes both a Vat and a sales tax.

It's also hugely regressive.

9.35am: Ewen Macaskill reports from the AEI headquarters in Washington where Cain is holding his press conference:

Cain is answering soft questions from the AEI moderator about halloween, pizza and the 9-9-9 tax plan. The AEI normally allows journalists as well as members to ask questions so the sexual harassment issue is bound to come up.

9.42am: Cain really is shameless, even for a politician. In one breath he says "we are thinking about" reforming social security for younger workers, and then says: "Social security isn't changing."

He is currently trashing the various policy proposals put forward by his opponents as "massive documents that nobody is going to read and nobody understands".

And asked what else he is going to do once he has passed 9-9-9 as president, he ignores the questions and says he'll ask Congress to make 9-9-9 retroactive. Uh?

Groans from part of audience when reporter raises sex allegations. Moderator reminds hacks of ground rules. So no story here. Circus will move to National Press Club for lunch at 1pm where Cain says will take all media arrows. This audience not hostile to Cain because of these allegations. Still laughing at his jokes.

Herman Cain seen on a monitor at the AEI in Washington DC. Photograph: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

10.08am: Tedious question from the Wall Street Journal to finish things off – and Cain then leaves with a final cryptic comment:

By the way folks, yes I am an unconventional candidate and yes I do have a sense of humour and some people have a problem with that.

But to quote my chief of staff and people I meet all round the country: Herman be Herman. And Herman is going to stay Herman.

So what does that mean? Is Cain essaying the good old-fashioned "Can't you take a joke?" defence there? Hmmmm.

10.12am: The circus now shifts to the National Press Club in downtown DC where Cain is speaking at lunchtime. Although there is a more geeky discussion about the 9-9-9 plan at the AEI if that's what you are into. Grover Norquist is speaking!

And even Fox News will do a tougher job on Cain than Matt Frei. None of that "Ooooh I love your accent Mr Cain, you devil." Are we trying to get an interview with Herman Cain by any chance, ITN's Matt Frei?

The investigative piece says that Cain's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, Mark Block and Linda Hansen, ran a private company that helped Cain's campaign by "footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas - something that might breach federal tax and campaign law".

Unlike the Politico story last night, the MJS's piece is well documented – and includes these quotes:

Election law experts say the transactions raise a host of questions for the private organization, which billed itself as a tax-exempt nonprofit, and the Cain team.

"If the records accurately reflect what occurred, this is way out of bounds," said a Washington, DC-based election lawyer who advises many Republican candidates and conservative groups on campaign issues. The lawyer asked not to be identified because of those affiliations.

Michael Maistelman, a Wisconsin campaign attorney, agreed.

"The number of questionable and possibly illegal transactions conducted on behalf of Herman Cain is staggering," said Maistelman, a Democrat who has represented politicians from both parties on campaign issues.

Note: thanks to commentator manbearpig07 for correcting the name of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

I live in/around Milwaukee, and appreciate your quoting from our fine paper. But the paper is named Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and not Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal

In a letter to the paper's editor, Cmdr Jeffrey Gordon accused Carol Rosenberg of "multiple incidents of abusive and degrading comments of an explicitly sexual nature." Gordon, who deals primarily with the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison, said in the letter that this was a "formal sexual harassment complaint" and asked the Herald for a "thorough investigation."

"Her behavior has been so atrocious over the years," Gordon said in an interview. "I've been abused worse than the detainees have been abused."

I think we need to know more about this Jeffrey Gordon.

11.23am: Cain's now appearing on Fox News. First question is if he has ever been accused of sexual harassment. Cain responds:

I have never sexually harassed anyone, let me say that.... Yes, I was falsely accused while I was at the National Restaurant Association, and I say 'falsely' because it turned out after the investigation to be baseless.

Q: Has Cain ever had to settle a claim because of a sexual harrassment accusation?

Outside of the restaurant association, absolutely not. If the restuarant association did a settlement, I wasn't aware of it and I hope it was not for much because nothing happened. If it was a settlement it was handled by some of the other officers of the association that worked for me. So the answer is, absolutely not.

Q: Will there be any other such allegations in the future?

Absolutely not. If other allegations come people will simply make them up.

I think that's clear, no? No.

11.28am: So Cain isn't denying that the National Restuarant Association may have settled a claim resulting from allegations of harassment made against him.

To say that he "wasn't aware of it" doesn't answer the question: Cain was the chief executive of the lobbying group and if he wasn't aware of a settlement to an employee at the time then that seems difficult to credit.

The National Restaurant Association currently has fewer than 100 employees, according to some random website I just googled. It's not General Electric.

11.30am: Asked about the serious charges in today's Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal about illegal campaign financing, Cain says he isn't aware of the report.

Finally, asked why his family hasn't appeared with him on the campaign trail, including his wife and adult children, Cain repeats that he is "an unconventional candidate" and wants to protect his family (although he doesn't use the word "protect").

Oh boy. Has anyone ever told Herman Cain that old saying about what to do when in a hole? It involves ceasing to dig. Although here Cain has multitasked by shooting himself in the foot at the same time as digging himself in deeper. Good job.

12.08pm: Meanwhile, over at Herman Cain's national tour of the media, they are giving away "9-9-9 cupcakes" at the National Press Club. Can someone turn one upside-down and send me a photo? Thanks.

12.20pm: And to think I used to walk past the National Restaurant Association offices on the way to work every day, pausing only to make jokes about the cafetaria being terrible and imagining people hilariously getting it mixed up with the National Rifle Association because they share the same initials.

12.22pm: In unrelated news, I think I can see David Axelrod eating soup across the road at Loeb's Deli on I Street.

12.26pm: Cain's next public appearance at the National Press Club will be televisied live on C-Span – if you would like to toy with your browser freezing and crashing then try your luck with C-Span's live stream here.

12.33pm: Axelrod's still there drinking coffee. I could shout questions at him if these office windows opened.

1.06pm: Here we go again – Herman Cain is now speaking at the press club.

1.10pm: Now Cain is talking – and isn't addressing the harassment allegations but is instead banging on about his foreign policy, as if anyone cares.

Apparently, a Cain presidency will form a close alliance between the US and Israel. A radical step to be sure but maybe it's worth a try. "I don't believe that you need to have extensive foreign policy experience," says Cain. Well that's a stroke of luck.

Anyway, Cain quickly draws the obvious parallels between running a pizza chain and US foreign policy:

I had never made a pizza. But I learned The way we renewed Godfather's Pizza as a company is the way we will renew America as a nation.

Oh dear, did Cain just do the Iraq/Iran mix-up thing? So easy to do.

1.15pm: Listening to Cain talk about foreign policy is remarkably similar to listening to Cain talk about his 9-9-9 tax plan. The same lines, same jokes.

So a "foreign policy" speech gets a few sentences about how regulation is strangling the American economy and the need for a fair tax system. OK.

1.19pm: Cain talks about the pain of being harassed – by the Internal Revenue Service:

A tax code that allows the IRS to harass us. And those of you who have been through that know what I'm talking about.

Being harassed is terrible, obviously. Herman Cain feels your pain.

1.21pm: My colleague Ewen Macaskill is at the National Press Club – and he reports that the place is packed with journalists:

Mark Block is sitting at the top table, with not a fag* in sight. A couple of hundred hacks are finishing up lunch. There's another hundred in the gallery and blocking doorways stopping staff getting in to clear up.

*British slang for cigarette

So far Cain is just repeating more or less exactly what he told the AEI this morning.

1.24pm: Cain certainly seems more downbeat than in his earlier apearance.

Now it's time for questions from the floor. Maybe ITN's Matt Frei's there and can ask something about where Cain gets his sharp suits.

1.25pm: Now the moderator asks Cain directly about the Politico story:

Number one, in all of my over 40 years of business experience running businesses and corporations, I have never sexually harassed anyone.

Number two, while at the Restaurant Association, I was accused of sexual harassment, falsely accused, I might add. I was falsely accused of sexual harassment, and when the charges were brought, as the leader of the organization I recused myself and allowed my general counsel and my human resource officer to deal with the situation and it was concluded after a thorough investigation that is had no basis.

As for as a settlement, I am unaware of any sort of settlement. I hope it wasn't for much because I didn't do anything. But the fact of the matter is I'm not aware of a settlement that came out of that accusation.

Per the article, two anonymous sources claiming sexual harassment, we're not going to chase anonymous sources when there's no basis for the accusation.

I would draw your attention to the three people mentioned near the end of the article that were at the Restaurant Association as past chairman, chairman and incoming chairman of the board, who would have known about this if it had turned out in fact to be a charge with some validity. But it was not. And so as a result, I have never sexually harassed anyone and those accusations are totally false.

So Cain is going to ask the NRA to "further shoot this down," asks the moderator. "No," says Cain:

There's nothing to shoot down, and secondly, the policies of the Restaurant Association is not to divulge that information. And so unless they have changed their policies. Remember, I was the chairman of the board and so as far as we're concerned, you know, enough said – enough said about the issue. There's nothing else there to dig up.

OK, so this isn't going to go away and Cain appears once again to be Clintonesque.

1.35pm: Cain really does use the same answers to every question. At times this is a word for word repeat of his AEI appearance.

This time, though, when asked a sticky question about fiscal policy he actually hands it over to one of his advisers to answer. That's throwing in the towel and admitting you don't know what you are talking about.

Mr Cain is wrong there - we have a half-dozen sources on various aspects of the charges. There are at least 2 women involved

1.44pm: The Guardian's Ewen Macaskill is watching Cain live at the National Press Club:

It's laudable that American hacks take their civic duty seriously but hopefully we will get another question on the harassment allegations. Cain is making a mistake in refusing again to say if the restaurant hotel association paid out a settlement. He can't get away with saying it is the association's policy not to divulge information.

1.51pm: Asked about the effect of having a black president, Cain says that any racial tensions are the result of the White House "playing the race card".

Basically, it's all Obama's fault.

1.53pm: Asked if racism still exists, Cain says that indeed there is some: "Are there still signs of racism in some of our institutions? Yes ... but it is not there more than it is there," says Cain.

1.56pm: Isn't this a great advertisment for the US media? Two milque-toast questions with no follow up? Seriously?

Oh now they are giving Cain a coffee mug. How nice. And asking him to sing.

I find most journalism gatherings depressing and it's not because their business is failing. It's depressing in the way old high school football jocks commiserate at a dive bar talking about the glory days – for the 30th year in a row.

Journalism, particularly newspapers, have been fleecing America for decades and the bill has come due.

2.02pm: If that had happened in front of a room full of British journalists, Herman Cain would have been lucky to have got out the door alive.

On the other hand, we had Matt Frei make an arse of himself earlier so I take it back.

2.07pm: My colleagaue Ewen Macaskill has an explanation for why the Q&A at the National Press Club was so lame: it's the fault of the formula, with the chairman reading out questions submitted in advance so there's no chance to challenge Cain's comments made earlier today.

2.10pm: The song Cain sang at the end of the National Press Club wet kiss just now? He Looked Beyond My Faults.

Cain's team, such as it is, has apparently had ten days to prepare a response to the allegations, and they've still been unable to get it together. On Sunday, Cain was quizzed while leaving a television studio and tried to avoid the issue with a few non-sequiturs. That didn't work, and so Cain attempted a preposterous turnabout, asking the reporter, "Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?"

His shoestring campaign staff has performed no better: first, there was no comment; then, there were blame-the-media outbursts with a hint of conspiracy theory ("a prominent conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics"), and only Monday did we get a denial, of sorts. On the news channels, first Cain's top adviser, then Cain himself, said he had been "falsely accused" – but neither denied that the association and the alleged victims had come to a settlement.

Herman Cain said in his speech today that the National Restaurant Association's general counsel and the human resources department conducted an investigation into allegations about his conduct in the late-90s.

But the head of the association's human resources department at the time said in an interview with Politico last week that she was unfamiliar with any complaints from female employees about Cain.

"No, I do not," said Mary Ose, the former human resources chief when asked if she was aware of allegations about Cain's behavior from his time.

When Politico called Ose back today after Cain claimed that her department had investigated an allegation, Ose's response was: "He did not say that."

Cain, in an interview with Bloomberg News before a National Press Club luncheon in Washington, said the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigated allegations he sexually harassed an employee and found "no basis" to pursue the case.

Now, if the EEOC was involved, isn't that a bigger deal? And what about the internal investigation that Cain mentioned in his press club remarks?

The National Restaurant Association released the following statement regarding a Politico report of allegations against Herman Cain while he was President of the National Restaurant Association during the 1990s:

"The incidents in question relate to personnel matters that allegedly took place nearly fifteen years ago. Consistent with our longstanding policy, we don't comment on personnel issues relating to current or former employees," said Sue Hensley, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Communications for the National Restaurant Association.

For Cain not to have known that the association settled sexual harassment complaints against him "would be highly unusual, extremely unlikely, and I would be shocked if that were the case," says Patricia Barasch, president of the National Employment Lawyers Association.

Bruce Fredrickson, a Washington-based employment lawyer, had a similar take.

If the women's complaints were directly against Cain, which the Politico story alleges, "his account would be rather implausible to me," said Fredrickson, past president of the National Employment Lawyers Association, particularly if the complaints were resolved with a monetary settlement.

Van Susteren asked what Cain did that led to the accusation. There were reportedly more than one accusations in the complaint, but Cain said he recalled just one incident. "She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying – and I was standing close to her – and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife. And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, 'My wife comes up to my chin.'" At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin. "And that was put in there [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable," Cain said, "something that was in the sexual harassment charge."

Van Susteren asked whether the woman complained at the time. "I can't recall any comment that she made, positive or negative."

Cain also offered new information about the settlement of the case. Politico, which broke the sexual harassment allegation story, said that the woman received a money settlement "in the five-figure range." When van Susteren asked about that, Cain said, "My general counsel said this started out where she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement … I don't remember a number … But then he said because there was no basis for this, we ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement." When van Susteren asked how much money was involved, Cain said. "Maybe three months' salary. I don't remember. It might have been two months. I do remember my general counsel saying we didn't pay all of the money they demanded."

From a denial and a refusal to comment, Herman Cain has moved a long way in 24 hours on this. What are we going to find out in another 24 hours? According to Politico, Cain invited a woman into his hotel room during an event in Chicago. And no mention here of a complaint to the EEOC.

He's not denying, but he ain't responding and that's not the best place to be. If these allegations are not true, say they aren't true and put it behind you. If not, better get everything out sooner rather than later because in a situation like this, if there is something there, that something's going to come out.

5.15pm: Time to wrap our coverage for the evening. What will come out in the next few hours? After today, who knows?

After denying that he knew anything about any financial settlements, Cain's memory has suddenly recovered. Politics blogger Doug Mataconis sums it all up:

It's a simple question, really. Either Cain knew about the settlement or he didn't. This morning and this afternoon he said he didn't. Tonight, on Fox News Channel he is basically going to say that he did, which makes sense given the fact that he was the CEO of the NRA. I doubt that van Susterin will point out the seeming contradiction, she simply isn't that good of a journalist and Fox News is friendly territory for Cain. Nonetheless, everyone else is going to notice it. And Cain is going to have to explain this all over again.

My guess is that in the next few days we'll find out more details – and that Cain's memory of events may not tally with the records when they emerge.

About this article

Herman Cain: first appearances after sexual harassment allegations – as it happened

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 17.23 EDT on Monday 31 October 2011.
It was last modified at 10.29 EDT on Monday 13 October 2014.
It was first published at 09.04 EDT on Monday 31 October 2011.